


many ports of call

by smithens



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Flirting, Gossip, M/M, Short Chapters, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28780158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Downton Abbey has a reputation.So does Richard.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> unlike most wips i publish, this one is not close to being done and might not ever be done. this may never update again and all you will be left with is the Vibe. however, i crave validation and my life has been very difficult lately AND i do this for free, so you can deal <3

"Aren't you _worried,_ Mr Ellis?" 

"About what?"

"About _Downton_ , of course," Betty whispered—she was moments away from a bout of nerves. Richard didn't know if it was the subject of conversation (generally when a statement was preceded by several minutes' worth of opening and closing the mouth like a fish, one could assume it was associated with some anxiety) or merely that she'd had to muster up the courage to speak to him without being spoken to first.

He couldn't hold back his amusement: he closed his book over his finger and leaned forward, kept his voice hush-hush. She was a few chairs down at the table but he didn't have to act like it. "Why, what do you mean, _about Downton_?"

A bad idea, to encourage her, she'd been cosying up to him ever since Miller got wed… And travel was the only real opportunity she had, things being so segregated as they were at the residences. The poor girls were expected to find husbands by thirty if they weren't keen on devoting the rest of their lives to the Crown, but how they were to do it under lock and key escaped him. 

Then, his sisters had managed it, so surely Betty could, too... if only she barked up a different tree.

"Oh, I–"

And if she stopped getting flustered every time a man expressed anything even marginally resembling interest.

"–well, I suppose you must mean the _stories_ ," Richard went on, allowing himself a smile. He replaced his finger with a folded-over corner and snapped the book shut. Full attention. Betty blushed the colour of an apple and ducked her head. "Of course, it's been a few years now since the last _murder_ , hasn't it, they've kept well enough in line... I'm sure we have nothing to worry about."

"But isn't it frightful, that there's been more than one?"

"As I recall it, they got off the hook for each—weren't charges for all of them, neither."

A spin on the truth if there ever was one. No matter what the busybodies of London liked to say, somebody dying unexpectedly and in unfortunate circumstances didn't necessarily mean he was murdered, even if there was a precedent for it. Naturally logic of that sort was unlikely to convince people who'd already made their minds up... and _that_ population consisted of no less than every domestic beyond a mile's radius of the Abbey and all of high society who had legs worth standing on.

Betty was making like a fish again, and Richard couldn't resist the temptation.

"...you don't reckon it might be haunted, Betty?"

"Haunted?" she squeaked.

Richard nodded.

"D'you believe in those things, truly? Sir?"

Try though she might to put on a brave face, it was clear the notion had affected her… how old was she, anyway? Setting the rest—his _preferences_ , the rungs on the ladder between them—aside, she was much too young for him, but he'd thought more than twenty-five. 

With all this time in close quarters he was beginning to think he'd guessed in the wrong direction.

"You're right," he submitted. "Silly of me, isn't it." She shook her head; he frowned. One day this would be less entertaining, but that day hadn't yet come. "Only one can't help but wonder, when they've got a reputation like that… you understand me, don't you?"

"Mr Ellis," came a snap from the doorway. Betty scrambled to her feet; Richard managed the same with significantly more grace. He bit back a grin. "I do hope you're not keeping our maids from a good night's sleep."

Anybody else but her would have put that the other way round.

"My," he said, making a show of pulling up his sleeves to check his wristwatch, "is that the time already?"

Mrs Webb raised her eyebrows...

"Run along to bed, girl."

...but her eyes were on him.

"Goodnight, Mr Ellis, sir," Betty trilled.

"Goodnight, Betty."

She trotted out of the servants' hall, didn't turn back. Well-trained.

He'd grown out of that.

Richard used the moment to look at his watch for real rather than for show. In fact it was later than he'd have guessed. Time flies when you're having fun… he'd have to double check on His Majesty's shoes and stockings before he went to bed, probably sort out his own, too, so he didn't have to rush in the morning. 

He wasn't exactly sorry to be leaving Raby Castle. Easy to make mistakes when you wanted to get out of a place quick.

Mrs Webb was crossing her arms and tapping her toe, a sharp arch in one eyebrow.

"You know you don't have to worry about me," Richard told her.

"They don't work quite so hard with broken hearts," she returned, unamused.


	2. Chapter 2

"I suppose it will be interesting," Lawton said with a sniff. "Such a _modern_ house… But it's hardly my place to question the choices of Their Majesties."

"Indeed it is not."

Richard rolled his eyes, managing to resist making a show of it only by keeping his gaze out the window… they were rolling along past the countryside, surrounded by the green of grass and trees and the gold of sun and wheat. Some sheep, some cows, a tractor here and a wagon there. Being in London half the year made such things exceptional. The grounds of Raby Castle, so trim and manicured as they were, had nothing on this. He did wonder what the house itself might look like, if it was holding on to the glory years or fading fast like so many of the rest. He must have seen a painting or a photograph at some point, he supposed, but he couldn't much recall it if he had.

He'd spent every minute of his six day tenure at Raby indoors. Likely though it was to be more of the same at the Abbey, he'd make do with what little he had in between—and he had a night off coming up, didn't he, he could make something of that, too. Maybe there'd be time to pop over to the village between this afternoon and Friday morning, if he played his cards right. Talk to some people, head back up to London with something to share—and to take along to the next house.

Boring and dated though these sorts of visits tended to be, getting out of the hustle and bustle and smog was nice. He was sorry to be missing the fun part of the season, of course…

But not as sorry as he'd have been the summer before.

Where to put his money, that was the question. _What sort of week will this be._

From all he'd heard, you could call Downton Abbey a lot of things, but _boring_ wasn't the most apt of them. 

"I don't expect any trouble," Mr Wilson droned on, more as a warning than an observation. "Isn't that right, Mr Ellis?"

"Certainly, Mr Wilson."

"No funny business."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of allowing it, sir."

Lawton scoffed, but he suspected she was more amused than she let on.

By the time they made it through the gates—and the house, frankly, looked much better than he'd have guessed based on the information he had— Richard decided had gone over it in his head some and determined that, as it happened, he could have filled a page or two in his diary with Things He Knew About Downton Abbey, if he had the mind and time to put it to paper.

Home to the Earl of Grantham and his American heiress, simple enough. Home also to one daughter (of two living and three total) and her husband (who sold cars for a living), the same. An heir presumptive but not apparent. All that you could find in Debrett's or Burke's with ease, but the _rest_ …

A chauffeur (and if you could believe the evening papers that was the least of the man's black marks) upstairs. A marriage he'd been sorry to hear about, and on that note, tragic deaths galore, some suspicious. Add to that a handful of criminal records across the board, where the staff were concerned: murder, theft, more murder, as well as some storied pasts that weren't quite criminal but _interesting_ all the same. 

Plus the more mundane, all what he'd learned just recently from sticking his nose where it didn't belong, getting the lay of the servants' hall before he was obliged to set foot in it: employed women who were _Mrs Man's Name,_ the butler new to the post if not the house, some concerns (above Richard's head, naturally) about politics in the kitchens, they'd had a tip off from somebody in the village… Terribly quaint. Combine it all with everything else the Granthams had got up to since the current Earl inherited all those years ago and you had quite the list. The only question left to ask of the place was how much of it was true, how much was exaggerated, and how much was hogwash.

As the car rolled over the gravel and up to the front door—they wouldn't be expecting that, poor things, would they; Wilson never failed to spring it on them—Richard supposed he was about to find out.


End file.
